THE BARON

THE BARON In the early days of the Second Empire, aggressive World holders, known collectively as the Star Barons, expanded rapidly through the old Empire. Many races found it expedient to join a Baron's fiefdom, for protection for efficient management of planetary resources, and for the economic riches the rapacious Baron's promised. Despite some excesses by these power hungry Barons, these early days of expansion were mostly peaceful and served the common interests of all the races. As these baronies grew, however, the Star Barons began to discover one another, other races, other forces, and the universe that had seemed so vast began to feel small. Thus began what historians refer to as the Imperial Wars of the Second Empire.

- excerpt Encyclopaedia Galactica

BARON SCORING:

• 4 points for each World owned.
• 1 point for each 10 population owned, or 2 robots, rounded down
• 1 point for each 5 Mines owned, rounded down, up to total of World Population.
• 1 point for each Factory owned that processes a Raw Material.
• 1 additional Imperial Credit earned at each fully producing world (factories =Imperial Credits produced) deposited at that factory world.

Gems: DIAMONDS

Relics:

• The Jade Scepter (Also Houri)
• The Iridium Palace (Also Warlord
• The Imperial Crown (Also Raider)
• The Silicon Chip (Also Terminator)

BARON ADVANTAGES: Each world that is fully producing, meaning that every factory is busy producing Imperial Credits, produces 1 additional Imperial Credit deposited at that factory world. This means that Barons can create more wealth than other characters by efficiently producing factory worlds. Not only is this valuable to the Baron in terms of purchasing power but it is also a powerful argument for "managing" worlds for other players. The Baron can produce extra wealth for use of the Starlords who are willing to let the Baron run and manage their worlds for them.

BARON STRATEGIES: You are the Baron. There are either one or two other Barons in the game. Barons, at first glance are easy to understand. They are acquisitive. You get points for Worlds, Population, Raw Material Production, and working Factories. So your goal is easy, own a lot of worlds, particularly high population ones, and with factories, and with mines. And you will want to get those factories on them up to full production and build mines. Since each empire divides out to roughly 22 worlds per player you will need to have a lot more than that by the end of the game.

In terms of relationships, you can make solid relationships with any other character easily, if you think in terms of what they need but your two most obvious matches are the Trader and the Warlord.

THE TRADER
You will notice immediately that many of your factory worlds cannot produce because they don’t have enough Raw Materials stockpiled. That’s usually because the world just doesn’t have enough mines to produce Raw Materials. A Trader can most efficiently move Raw Materials from nearby worlds around for you. Your large empire is a nice safe place for that character to do these tasks. You should consider trading fleets or even giving fleets to a Trader to make this happen. Owning some of his worlds will make him more trading points.

THE HOURI
Just depends upon which character the chameleon Houri is playing this turn. A really good Houri ally can be whatever you need whenever you both need it. This can always be a good combination.

THE RAIDER
These can be really uncomfortable neighbors unless you can make some accommodation with them. If they just have to Raid your worlds, show them targets that don’t have factories on them or Mines that you use and it won’t hurt your points. Maybe you can trade him some low value worlds to you for Ravaging for some high value worlds from him that you can manage for him. He always needs fleets…

THE PHILOSOPHER
Does it concern you whether your population is made up of followers of some obscure cult? Probably not, unless they try to take over your worlds. Find a creative way to let Philosopher fleets fly through your worlds converting population and see if you could maybe own some of his. If he really trusts you, maybe even his Homeworld!

THE TERMINATOR
Well you are going to own a lot of worlds that don’t have much population and some that don’t have any. It might even be to your advantage to have fully robotized population near your borders. Enemy fleets flying over their worlds do not intimidate robots. Also, that Terminator might just be the guy to call if those Philosopher minions start to get out of hand. Your Philosopher friend won’t mind; do you know why? You could manage his worlds for him a lot better than he could… He needs resources badly.

THE WARLORD
The Warlord needs to conquer worlds all the time, every turn but he doesn’t get points for actually owning them once they are taken. As his the recipient of his Tribute List, every world that he conquers could belong to you. How can you get him to make you his favorite Tribute target? Perhaps he needs fleets and ships on them? Perhaps he would rather concentrate on his battle plans rather than managing his worlds? Perhaps you could point out some targets…

BARON HINTS: The Baron is driven to expand constantly. He needs many high Population, high Raw Material Production, and Factory, Worlds. He must be willing to trade and be creative in orchestrating alliances and intrigues to get them. Open conquest will tend to drive dangerous allies together against his power. The Baron must meet and become friends with many Starlords and seek creative ways to help them in return for managing their empires. He is threatened most by other Players who think they need World ownership. But constructive agreements can be forged with everyone in the game by carefully considering the Character Types of all the Starlords. He is very powerful and very, very rich but he is also very vulnerable because his borders are so long.

Barons will see a lot of worlds and have a lot of things to keep track of. Barons will take the immediate lead in the game and the challenge for them is to grow fast enough to continue to hold the lead. A low ending score favors the Baron. Barons will need to be politically active and to create webs of alliances to hold off enemies and to keep any one player from taking bites out of your vast reach of worlds. There is usually a lot of traffic in the Baron’s empire so a safe place to store artifacts is needed. Barons should place high emphasis on getting as many point generating artifacts as early in the game as possible. Barons need lots of resources for trading so like all Starlords, they need to expand and explore as rapidly as possible in the early turns to find every possible fleet and world that isn’t nailed down.